Field of the Disclosure
The present invention relates in general to building products and, in particular, to a system, method and apparatus for corner siding building products.
Description of the Related Art
Wooden shingles and shakes are popular and attractive siding products used in the construction of homes, businesses and other structures. Unfortunately, these wooden products require constant maintenance, and are extremely expensive, as well as labor intensive to install. Further, the durability of wooden products, such as those constructed from cedar, lags far behind that of products made of synthetic materials. Therefore, a considerable number of synthetic siding products have been created that simulate the wooden appearance of, for example, cedar shingles or cedar shake shingles. These siding products are typically formed from materials such as polyvinyl chloride and polypropylene.
Once siding panels are installed onto the exterior sheathing of a structure, it often becomes necessary to place a corner cap over the exposed ends of the siding panels. Efforts have been made to match the ornamental appearance of the siding panel with the corner cap appearance, so as to avoid an unaesthetic or artificial looking final structure.
Prior art corner pieces typically suffer from several drawbacks. First, the appearance of a random selection of shingles within each course formed on the siding panels does not continue through to the corner pieces when they have identical faces. The courses do not appear as if they terminate in a natural manner at the corners of the structure. This unnatural appearance occurs when employing either the multiple course corner piece, where the faces are identical, or when employing the single course corner piece, where the faces are identical.
Further, when viewing only a single wall of a structure that includes a prior art corner piece, it becomes quite apparent that artificial corner pieces have been employed. A continuous and non-staggered lateral edge is apparent along the entire corner of the structure between corner pieces in a vertical stack, one on top of the other. The linear joint formed between the siding corner pieces and the siding panels is apparent to even a casual observer.
Therefore, there remains a need for a corner piece that provides the appearance of a more natural termination of the courses of a siding facade employing simulated cedar impression siding panels and for a corner piece that more effectively blends the corner piece into the facade to mask the presence of the corner piece and promote the overall desired appearance of a random selection of individual shingles.